Not faith

Today has been a rough one.  I promised to be honest in this blog, and here goes.

If Christianity were a course in school, i feel like the dumbest kid in class.  Just when I think I am getting it, it slips through my fingers.  I feel like I studied for the history test, but was given a test on advanced calculus instead.  The number of “duh” moments in my faith life seem to be increasing at an alarming pace.

So what has me I a tizzy at this particular moment? Faith, mine, or more specifically the absence of  evidence in my life.  Our lives are in a nasty hurry up and wait mode. I hate that with a passion. I hate that with a run out in the yard waving my arms and screaming naughty words sort of passion.  Give me a vision, a quest, a goal, a purpose, a direction, a  word, common God throw me a bone here.  Wait. That’s the nasty moldy stinking bone I get. (Muttering under my breath) .

They hyper annoying question we are dealing with, the question that hides under the failing adoption, our struggles to sell our house,  my physical difficulties, domestic issues, and a thousand other little irritants and issues that make up life is this: is God good?  Now here is the problem with that.  The answer is obviously yes.  I “believe” that God is good.  I  “believe” that he has my best interests in hand, he is in control of my life, and will make all things work to my good.   Ask my actions, my thoughts, my heart the question again: is God good?  My answer is yes…no…maybe…sometimes.  That looks more like unbelief than belief.  Aren’t we supposed to walk by faith and not by sight?  I appear to be a not by faith, all by sight sort of guy.

Oh God help my Unbelief.  Why is my faith so thin?  What is the difference between belief and faith?

Is belief what we accept, what we have heard, what we have been taught?  Is faith then what we have experienced?  Is faith that God is good grown from experiences that show he is good?  Or is there more that the slowest kid in spiritual school doesn’t get?  If you have insight, please, please leave me a comment.  I am tired of flailing and grasping things at a shallow level.

A picture is worth a broken heart

Luella ordered a few pictures from a photographer we met in India. She was part of a multi media team that our friend Brenda was taking to the slums and brothels.  Yesterday the pictures arrived.  In an orange shirt that is a little too big for her thin frame, Stephanie’s smile shines out at us.  In one picture you can see the rainbow loom bracelet I gave her.  Aurora made Luella and I matching bracelets before we left for India, I gave mine to Stephanie.  I had to shorten it quite a bit so it would fit on her bird like wrist.

Last night, after Luella tucked our children into bed she said “It isn’t fair that some children have no one to put them to bed.  I am so angry”.  She wants to add Stephanie to our family, she wants to feed her and buy her clothes, and love her.  She has asked me “how  can it not be God’s will for us to adopt her, how could this not be his heart?”  I have no answer.  I don’t understand.  In a world with millions of orphans, what difference would it make to adopt one?  It would make a difference to Stephanie. It would make a difference to us and our family.  So, another day of letting it go, or trying to.  All we can do is hope and wait, and pray for her everyday.

World Refugee Day

For the first time since WW II the UN estimates that there are more than 50 million refugees and asylum seekers world wide.

Politics and causes aside, it is difficult to stomach the thought of children being born in camps, growing up, having children of their own, and never leaving the camp grounds.  What kind of life can be lived out there?  Camps become breeding grounds for extremists because hope for change must vanish very quickly.  Hope that you might be able to go home must die as well, maybe that takes longer, I don’t know.

I have been trying to put myself in their shoes.  If I were in a camp, what would I want from the rest of the world?  Would I want recognition of my family’s suffering?  Would I want some indication that I had some value, that my life meant something to the rest of the world, and that someone cared enough to do something about the situation?  How about a future for my family, my children having something beyond the borders of the refugee camp?  Would I want another country to take my family and I in, and give us a place of safety, security and hope, or would I hold on to hope that we might just be able to go home and lead our old lives again?  How would I handle crowding, the possibility that food, water, toilets and shelter might not be available due to the massive influx of people?  What about a job, what if I or one of my children got sick, or we got separated from my wife, and couldn’t find her.  What about violence in the camp, boredom, fear, hopelessness and despair?  Would I give up and die?  Would my faith in The goodness of God falter or fail?  Would I be able to believe in the love of God, that he had my best interests at heart, and he had a purpose for me, or would all the suffering push me to doubt all.  What if I died there?  What would have the purpose of my life have been?

I am having a difficult time imagining it.  I don’t have any answers to those questions.  Do you?

What do we do about 50 million people?  How do we help?  Where do we start?

Opening my eyes?

The path of downward mobility

I must confess that I am struggling today.  I am exhausted.  Work has squeezed me dry today and I feel spent, worn, fragile.  Days like today remind me of my finiteness.  I am discouraged by the path my life has been on.  The press and rush to work and succeed.  To chase the dream, big house, money in the bank, investments, freedom, etc.  Something always get sacrificed on the alter of success.  My marriage suffered, and my wife and I drifted apart.  Only by the grace of God are we still married.  The wounds and scars still remain, and sometimes it is an everyday battle to see past the garbage and choose love again.   My children suffered.  I haven’t taken a summer vacation in eight years.  So long ago that neither of my children remember it.  I never was a candidate for dad of the year, but this is pathetic.  I can never get those summers back, and what did all the long hours and hard work get me?  Well, I can’t even remember what seemed so important and so worthy of all the striving and sacrifice. 

I guess I have plenty to be thankful for.  Jesus has gently guided us toward the path of downward mobility.  We will never have more material wealth than we do at this very moment.  Let it decrease and be refocused on things that have eternal worth, rather than our temporary personal satisfaction.  It is my hope that my business career is at it’s pinnacle and will slide toward obscurity while we turn our energy to building the kingdom of God rather than building our own kingdom.  Let there be more of Jesus in every aspect of our lives.  It is my hope that as we decrease in the eyes of the world, that my marriage will see healing, my children will have the father they need, and we will find the peace that passes all understanding.  I am okay with being judged a failure, driving older vehicle, not being able to afford expensive man toys or trips.  Maybe I finally have a grasp of success. 

Pride

 A human being is a funny thing. One moment I am mud in my own eyes, a failure with no prospects or future, the next I am one of the greatest minds of my generation, brilliant, witty, poised, talented and gifted.  Opposites, or just different faces of the same coin?  I was amazed to realize that when I think I am worthless, and how could God possible love someone like me, it is pride speaking.  Think about it.  Am I really such an awful example of God’s creation that even he couldn’t love me?  Pride.  I have heard people say things like “God could never forgive someone like me” – pride.  What have they done that puts them in a position that the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross couldn’t cover them? Of course when I think things like “man I am such a great carpenter, or wow, I get this Christianity thing” those are easy to identify as pride.  Pride is so sneaky, I can become proud of not being proud. What to do, what to do?

 I am sitting on my deck enjoying the sunshine.  I close my eyes and listen.  A barn swallow sits on my fence and brags about it’s new nest and clutch of eggs, crickets steadily make themselves known, gophers sing out warnings about some overhead threat, small dogs declare their territory, children giggle and play, and the leaves of the trees rustle together.  The beautiful, all too short summer sunshine warms my face.  Just think that our personal star that we call the sun is simply the correct distance from our earth. Any closer and we roast, further away and we freeze.  Everything works so very well. From the incredible miracle that is my body to the mother robin feeding her young under my neighbour’s deck.  Everything is beautiful and made so well! They are the everyday miracles that shout the glory of our amazing God! The one who created all of this loves me! Passionately, extravagantly, unceasingly, he loves me! How is it possible that the artist who paints the sky with his splendour love me so much? How is it possible that the God who breathed the universe into being, the unimaginably vast unending universe, is aware of an ant like me? But he is….he will never leave me or forsake me, never forget my name, never forget when I suffer, this great and mighty, awesome, powerful God says he holds my tears in a jar.  

So I open my eyes to the miracles all around me, and I see them proclaim the glory of our God.  All I can do is bring all that I am and offer myself to him. It is the only thing I have to give.  Everything else is filthy rags next to the majesty of God.  I feel his love and I am amazed and humbled by it. It is time to leave my pride behind. At least for today. Tomorrow I may have to do it again, but this God, enthroned in majesty and power, he will not turn me away or refuse me.  He might even reveal a little more of himself to me.  Now if I could figure out how Mosquitos the size of pterodactyls glorify him.

Navel gazing

Depression has played a huge role in my life through the years.  It is difficult to explain depression to someone who has never been depressed.  It isn’t just a good case of the blues, or being really discouraged, tho those things can play a role.  It isn’t just a matter of shaking it off, or stopping feeling sorry for yourself. It is a feeling that seems to come out of your very bones, a blackness that comes out of the depths of your being.

I have had at least one pastor tell me that depression doesn’t exist for Christians.  Thanks for the kick in the junk bud.  That is simply a fallacy.  I know many Christians who have been, and are struggling with depression.  Thanks to a false idea that we shouldn’t struggle with such things, most hide it and suffer in silence and shame, feeling that they have failed as Christians, that Jesus must not love them or that he is disappointed with them.

I went on antidepressants about ten years ago, and they helped, but then I decided to quit cold turkey, which was a baaaaaad idea.  Have you seen despicable me 2? I was like one of the bad purple minions.  My marriage survived, just. 

My depression was rooted in a deep sense of unworthiness coupled with low self esteem. I felt that no one could love me, that I was useless, worthless, and God loved me in a sort of half hearted and disappointed way, but only because he had to love everyone. I thought I was the lowest of the low, a meteoric failure, who just couldn’t get it right, or get his act together.  I also made the mistake of comparing myself to others. Everyone else seemed to be so much better, so much more spiritual, so much more successful, so much more useful, talented, beautiful, witty, funny, and generally loveable than I was.  I grew to hate myself. 

Fast forward, and God in his mercy showed me that he loved me just for who and what I was, failures, warts and all. It was such a powerful revelation that it broke my depression and my addiction to pornography(that is a different story).  I still get discouraged, but it isn’t the same blackness that used to overwhelm me. Thank-you Jesus.

Now, after all of that, I get to the point! Hahaha. I think that the self focus that feeds depression also bogs down large portions of the church, even if they don’t suffer from depression. The inward focus, even the familyiocentric (I just invented another word!) focus of many Christian, the me and mine are fine mentality that leads to complacency, and dulls our drive to share Jesus and his love.  I think it is time to turn our eyes on Jesus. What is important to him? I believe the Christian life demands that we stop thinking about ourselves, and focus on what breaks the heart of Jesus.

Quote from The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

     Fear breeds a deadening caution, a holding back, a stagnant waiting until people no longer can recall what they are waiting for or saving themselves for.  When we fear failure more than we love life; when we are dominated by thoughts of what we might have been rather than by thoughts of what we might become; when we are haunted by the disparity between our ideal selves and our real self; when we are tormented by guilt, shame, remorse, and self condemnation, we deny our faith in the God of love.  God calls us to break camp, abandon the comfort and security of the status quo, and embark in perilous freedom on the journey to a new Canaan. (Abraham) But when we procrastinate out of fear, this represents not only a decision to remain in Haran, but also a lack of trust.

Luella’s insight on the adoption

“Who makes an orphan, a son and daughter? The King of Glory.”
The words of a song I heard today. This is exactly right. God is a Father to all children. We don’t HAVE to feel that we need to make Stephanie our daughter. She is already HIS daughter. As much as I would LOVE to have her as my other daughter. He is looking after her.

 

Hunger

You can get used to being hungry.  This fast is causing me to look at what I have accepted.  I have accepted that millions of children go hungry everyday.  I am ashamed.  No child should go hungry.  It is difficult for an adult to deal with it, but a child? I cannot imagine having to sit by and watch your child starve.  I cannot fathom the depths of despair and desperation that would cause.  What would I do if I had to walk that out?  Steal? Kill? Sell one child so the other could eat? Beg?

In this moment I feel the intensity of God’s love poured out on me.  I feel the ache in my heart, so much deeper than the ache in my stomach.  God loves each of those starving children with the same intensity that he love me with.  Can I be content with the idea that I can go to the fridge and stuff my face anytime I want, while countless others scrape to get by and never know the feeling of a full tummy? It is wrong that I have been comfortable with this.   In the face of God’s love for me, can I simply turn and say thanks for all the blessings and remain unchanged with a heart hardened against the suffering of others?  I hope not. I hope not.

i have heard of people asking God why he doesn’t do something about hungry children, poverty, suffering, homelessness, orphans and addicts. His reply? Why don’t you do something.

Fasting Day 1

Fasting sucks.  There is no nice way to put it. Our bodies are used to being fed three times a day with plenty of snacks to fill in the holes thank you very much.  My brain isn’t used to having to make due on less, so I become a little fuzzy around the edges.  Straight forward thinking becomes more difficult, slower anyways, and problem solving can become a burden.  I am a lousy faster. Haha, I think I just made up a new term. – Josiah Mikkelsen, half baked carpenter, but rotten faster!  (I digress)  My body fat isn’t very high, and my metabolism is.  This means I am hungry quickly, and if I am not eating enough in the winter, I can pass out.

It makes me laugh (cry, moan, groan, complain, say naughty things) because whenever I fast, the awful jobs come out of hiding. I am not sure if this is God’s joke on me, or if it just feels that way, but everything seems harder. Today I had to get under the deck I was building, to fasten the final board against the house. The customer had chosen hidden fasteners so I didn’t want to put screws through the top of the last board. So there is about 15 inches between the ground and the deck joists. That means scooting on my back, dragging my tools along, trying not to scrape my nose on the joists. Then putting fasteners every foot or so. This of course was just wonderful all by itself, but being hungry and feeling weak was just the cherry on top.  Then my drill bit falls out of my pocket and I can’t find it.  Then along comes a rather large wasp that thought this was a great place to build a nest. That almost made me fill my pants, cause there was no way I could move my arms to defend myself, or get away if the fiend decided to attack the sweaty, pouting, growling mammal that had invaded it’s domain.  After It left, I lay on my back and laughed, had a little chat with God, and finished up.

My wife and I are fasting because we need to hear from God about the adoption we are pursuing.  We are getting frustrated and discouraged. We need to hear if we have run ahead of God, or if this is just something we need to battle through. We keep hearing wait until this, or wait until that, so we are fasting, looking for a break through.

As I was doing my prayer walk this morning, I was praising Jesus and asking for wisdom.  The feeling I got was that He loves Stephanie far more than we do, and knows her needs better than we do. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  His wisdom is higher than our wisdom. His ways are higher than our ways.  So I gave her back to God. I gave up my rights to have her as part of our family. I gave up my rights to be the father she has never had. I also proclaimed that  I am not her saviour.  Now I won’t quit praying and seeking direction, but I am trying to let go.

yesterday I was praying and this scripture dropped into my heart – John 12:24- unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces much fruit.  That hurt.

One day down, six to go.